


the longest peace in china

by LogicIsGod327



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, M/M, POV Second Person, POV Stiles, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Religious Guilt, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 22:54:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18678979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogicIsGod327/pseuds/LogicIsGod327
Summary: How then can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight.How much less man, that is a worm? And the son of man, which is a worm? -Job 25:4-6-Six months. You’ve been with them six months. Six months since the world ended for you. Since the Guardians took everything that meant anything. Since they slaughtered your father and your friends. Since they burned your house, leaving you only with the wallet sized photo of the three of you. Six months since the Hales found you, alone and teary-eyed, in the rubble of your town and took you in.It was the single greatest act of kindness that was ever given to you, and the deepest insult.





	the longest peace in china

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in a single frantic stretch, and unbeta'd, so if you guys would point out any inconsistencies or errors, that would be greatly appreciated. I honestly can't begin to tag or summarize this, so I'll just have to ask you guys to bear with me. Recommended listening is Sleeping at Last's 'Eight' and Johnny Cash's 'Hurt'. Enjoy.

_How then can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?_  
_Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight._  
_How much less man, that is a worm? And the son of man, which is a worm?_  
-Job 25:4-6

**-Ω-**

There’s a natural instinct in you, something that is on constant edge around them. _Danger,_ it whispers to you. They aren’t human, they’re the natural enemy of your people. They’ll tear out your throat with bared teeth and hooked claws, or worse, make you like them. They’ll steal the Lord’s light from your soul if you dare relax around them. You tell yourself you’re their prisoner, but you know it’s not true. You need only ask, and Talia will take you away, back to your own kind. Yet, whenever the words form on your tongue, the one request to save your life and your soul, your throat becomes thick, and the words are stuck before they can ever form.

You tell yourself you don’t know why that is, but that’s another lie you tell, just to keep your soul from going barren. You know damn well why, he’s five foot ten, with eyes that are so many colors you wouldn’t know where to start. He’s beautiful, he’s corruption. He’s like an incubus, specially designed just to rob you of everything that makes you human. Derek. His name feels like sin, and like salvation.

**-Ω-**

There was time when all the world belonged to humanity, when the monsters in the dark were just fairy tales told to scare children into behaving, fascinating mythologies for the scholars of great universities to study and attempt to trace their origins to the scientific truth at the heart of the matter. That world was dead and buried before your grandfather’s grandfather was born. The wolves emerged from the shadows and carved civilization to pieces, ran amok in the cities, slaughtered townsfolk in the countryside.

The Dawn Wars lasted a century. Wikipedia lays it out in stark, clinical terms. The rising power of America made the mistake of reaching out into the vast forests of the unknown continent, and it found the monsters that rational men had consigned to myth. The monsters reached back, and they won. They won solely because of the asymmetrical nature of the war. Man fought for the eradication of everything not like him. Monster fought simply for the right to stand in the sun.

From time to time, even today, there are hunts into the forests and plains. California has the second-largest werewolf population in the country, second only to New York. You try to remember going to class, spending afternoons with your father, but those memories are fading. The world has become small, and it runs by a different clock than the one you are used to, a twenty eight day clock, one timed to the full moon. Even you seem to have developed an unconscious awareness about it, as if you are becoming one of them simply by being around them.

The house, it seems, is always tense. Conversation is always clipped, and arguments spring up often and with force. You’ve seen these creatures who call each other family, mother, daughter, father, son, husband, wife, snipe and snarl at each other, claws out and eyes glowing. It just confirms your suspicions. There is no love in this house, only the rule of the alpha keeping her betas in line.

Derek, however, is different. He’s the most human of them, though not by much. He’s still a wolf, still an _animal._ He’s kind to you, however, not polite like Talia, or civil like Laura or Evan, or just plain hostile like Cora or Ritsa. He’s kind to you, makes it a point to ask how you’re doing, to offer you seconds during the pregnant silences of dinner. Derek is kind, and he is beautiful, and he is sin.

You pray, often. It seems that you do that so much these days. You pray for yourself, for the Lord to forgive you for sleeping in the house of His enemies, for the souls of those you love, those that the revolutionaries slaughtered. You pray for America, for everything but the wolves. You pray because prayer is all you have. The ancient illuminated Bible in the library has been read six times over by your greedy eyes, hoping that the words of the Apostles will be a balm to your soul. They aren’t. The Gospel is an insult, a backhand to your faith. Your eyes skim over the section of Leviticus that you’ve carefully avoided since you were twelve and felt the first stirrings of something unnatural within your loins. This time, however, you are helpless but to stare at the words that condemn your soul

_You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination._

The gilded pages become like lead. The cover feels like it weighs a thousand tons. You force it shut, and it is as though the last of your mortal body’s strength dies with the soft _thud_ of the cover against the pages. Is this death? Has madness taken you? You are uncertain. Without anything left to you, with your soul laid bare before the world, a festering wound for flies and maggots to rot in, you fall asleep, the soft upholstery of the couch in the library making a fine cradle for you to die in.

**-Ω-**

Damn. You didn’t die. It was unlikely that the book could’ve done you in, but the power of the Word is very real. You remember the opening line of the Gospel of John.

_In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God._

“Stiles, Mom says dinner is ready.” Laura’s voice breaks to you.

“Thanks.” You reply, sitting up and stretching.

You head to the dining room, and do your part. You lay out the plates and silverware, careful to organize them well. You are many things, prisoner to these beasts, for one, but a poor guest you are not. When that’s done, you head to the kitchen, where a small flatscreen plays the evening news from San Francisco. Giants beat the Mets 12-10. The Guardians raided a settlement in Montana, with no survivors. The President is visiting Germany tomorrow. A wolf killed three people in Los Angeles.

Ignoring the television, you grab the basket of rolls from the counter. Ritsa makes them herself, growing the wheat in her truly impressive garden, grinding it down to flour, making everything but the oil, salt, and sugar. Those they acquire from the market in San Jose, making rare trips into town. You never come along, simply out of fear. You’re afraid to be around your own kind, you feel as though you’re a wolf in all the ways but the one that matters most, and that you may never be fully human again. A large portion of that feeling comes from the way Derek’s kaleidoscopic eyes seem to burn whenever they rest on your pale features.

An even larger portion comes from the burning you feel in your stomach whenever it happens. There’s no shame for the wolves, they haven’t known the Word. They know ancient, pagan gods who see no difference between two men, two women, or one of each. Love is love seems to be the core of whatever it is they call faith. Funny, considering that this place seems barren of love. The only love you see is for Peter and Gwen’s baby. Even you love him, even when you see his brown eyes burn gold.

You wonder, sometimes, if the Word is untrue. After all, the wolves hadn’t been real, but then the Dawn Wars happened. If they were real, perhaps their strange gods are as well. You chase these thoughts from your head, and ask forgiveness from the Lord for your doubt. Late at night, when only you are awake, you’ll slip down to the library and read the texts of their faith. You pray for forgiveness when you are done. If they know, they don’t comment on it, and you like it better that way. The peace in this house is fragile, and the walls you’ve built around yourself seem to be key to that.

You remember the words of Robert Frost, your mother’s favorite poet.

_We may as well go patiently on with our life,_  
_And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun_  
_For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane._  
_It is true the longest drought will end in rain,_  
_The longest peace in China will end in strife._

**-Ω-**

Six months. You’ve been with them six months. Six months since the world ended for you. Since the Guardians took everything that meant anything. Since they slaughtered your father and your friends. Since they burned your house, leaving you only with the wallet sized photo of the three of you. Six months since the Hales found you, alone and teary-eyed, in the rubble of your town and took you in.

It was the single greatest act of kindness that was ever given to you, and the deepest insult. You’d have faced questions, police, military, and trials. You’d have been forced into a media circus, as all the survivors of the Guardian attacks are. You would have become a target for their sympathizers, those that believe that man should stay in his cities, and leave the wild for the wolves. Like there aren’t plenty of each in the other’s spaces. It’s the great lie, the _greatest_ lie, in fact.

Humans tell themselves that the wolves are far away, running rampant through distant forests, not living in the apartment down the hall, working as the receptionist at their kid’s school, voting in the same elections as them, even standing as _candidates_ in those elections. Wolves tell themselves that humans only pass through, and ignore the little cabins and tiny settlements, the small towns that pop up as people get sick of how damn crowded the cities have become and how long it takes for the suburbs to inch their way outwards like the urban cancer they are. The greatest lie is the one you all share, and it’s the one you no longer have the privilege of telling yourself. The wolves aren’t far, they’re ten feet away. They’re the closest thing to a family you have.

Everyone seems to be extra nice to you today. Even Cora doesn’t have a smartass remark for you. You know why, and you’re not sure whether to be furious or appreciative. The conflicting emotions sit in your stomach like a rock, completely indigestible and utterly horrific. You want nothing more than for this day to be over, and you can’t just retreat to your room and shut them out. Talia’s made it pretty clear that’s not an option, in action more so than word. She woke you this morning, asked for your help making breakfast. Cooking for ten wolves and a human teenager is an impressive feat, and she asks what your favorite breakfast meal is.

Surprise, surprise, there’s a plate of crepes in your spot at the table, served with strawberries, powdered sugar, and a hearty portion of Nutella when you get there. You thank her sincerely, and you’re blindsided by the radiance of her smile. It’s something truly maternal and warm, a warmth you haven’t felt since your own mother died years ago. You’ve spent so long in the cold that even this warmth, the very warmth that once healed the innocent wounds of adolescence, is like stepping into the flames. It’s agony of the sweetest nature. It’s Heaven and Hell and all things in between.

Are you truly so deprived of kindness and love that this simple gesture, a happy smile, is enough to break you? The answer is a resounding _Yes._ You haven’t had love in a long time, and it scares you now that it’s back at your feet, offered without prejudice, to be given freely and taken the same way. It’s fucking scary. The walls you put up seem to explode outwards, and you are bare. The words of the Book of Hebrews echo through the halls of your mind like a gunshot.

_For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart._

**-Ω-**

It’s late, and you’re wandering the woods outside of the enormous house. The golden hour is giving way to dusk proper, and you are alone simply because you wish it. It’s one of the obvious graces about being here, no one gives a damn what you do, so long as you’re there for dinner. You spend your days reading, writing, praying, watching television. Peter is an English professor at an all-wolf college not far from here, and he’s one of the few people who can hold a good conversation with you. You skirt topics of humanity and wolves, and never touch the Dawn Wars, but otherwise you are frank and spirited in discussion.

The only other one you can really have a good talk with is Derek, but your talks have changed. There is an underlying spark that is a new development, one that scares you both, if his response to it is any hint. Gone is the easy nature of his kindness, replaced by urgency and repressed desire on both of your parts. You enjoy the talks, you truly do, but you wonder how long this can keep going. The answer comes in the form of the snap of branches underfoot from behind you.

He says your name, and you stop and turn to face him. Even in the darkening light of the end of the day, he seems to glow. You want to ask him what he needs, but you cannot. You’re alone, far enough from the house that none of the others can hear you, even screaming. You’re truly alone with him for the first time, and the weight of the realization is crushing. If it’s going to happen, it’ll be now, or it’ll be never.

He doesn’t speak either, only approaches slowly, so slow that you wonder if he’ll ever reach you. When he finally does, it’s with a trillion questions brimming in his eyes, and you don’t even know where to begin. Just as you feel as though your chance has passed, his hand is cupping your elbow, and it’s just enough to break the dam. You nod, and then he is there. Any distance is gone, pushed away as his body presses yours against the hard bark of the massive redwood you’re leaning against. He tastes of the forest itself, something wild, animal, and decidedly natural.

How could _this_ be wrong? How could something that feels as though it has always been here, as though it has been waiting for you in this very spot for a billion years, be against God’s design? He jams his thigh between your legs as his tongue claims your mouth in the name of the moon and of his pagan gods.

_Yes,_ you think. _Take me. Erase everything. Make me anew. Make me in your image._

Your jeans have become tight, and his lips against yours seem to be the only tether keeping you on the mortal coil. You break the kiss harshly, only to reach down and tear at your shirt, stripping it off, and reaching for his to do the same. He lets you, and that surprises you, but you do it anyway. When you meet him again, it is with miles of skin against yours. The hard plains of his body contour perfectly to your own, a puzzle piece made exclusively for this moment.

He reaches down, unbuttoning your pants, and slips his hand into your boxers. It’s wonderful, and the friction against your cock is sure to finish you off, but it’s not what you need, not what you want. You want erasure, you want to drive your humanity over the brink. You _need_ it, more than oxygen, more than cheap bodily pleasure. This is a matter of the soul, and you will satisfy its demands. You sink to your knees, and waste no time in pushing down his pants and underwear, buttons and zippers be damned. You lean in, pressing a kiss to the head of him as it slips out of the protection of its foreskin, and take him as deep into your mouth as you can.

It’s not far, and you wish it were further, wish you could take him to the root, wish you could bury your nose in the unkempt thatch of his black pubic hair and feel his heavy testicles slamming against your chin, but it’s enough, for now. He tastes of the day’s sweat and something even more natural than his tongue. He tastes like an animal, and you feel like one. You feel like a fallen angel, or a filthy god, one that fucks in the dirt with the supplicant that has offered himself before the altar of your sex, one conducting the holiest of holy masses.

You bob your head as you jerk off his shaft, and Derek is above you, cursing and moaning your name like a prayer. It’s good, it’s so damn good that you never want it to end, and yet you chase his climax, the seed that will plant the tree of forbidden knowledge deep within you. This is the original sin, you realize. It wasn’t some apple, it was sex. You are closer to divinity than you have ever been, and that realization spurs you on to grab your own erection, to jack yourself in time to the bob of your head and the swirl of your tongue.

Derek is threading his fingers through your hair, and he tells you he is close, and that drives you to further heights, pushes you closer to what you know will be the single most powerful climax of your life.

_Unmake me,_ you pray, but not to the Lord. The Lord is dead. He was never alive. Here, in this forest, with the cock of your mortal enemy halfway down your throat, you realize this. You pray to the gods of your enemy’s people, because they feel more real, more omnipresent in this moment than the Lord _ever_ did. _Make me new,_ you pray once more. Your mouth is flooded by his release, and you do not let a drop leave the seal of your lips. If Talia’s kindness was walking into the flames, this is something altogether different. Derek’s love is like swallowing the moon, and it tastes like molten silver. You come so hard you black out.

**-Ω-**

When you wake the next morning, it’s to the realization that it’s the full moon. It’s to the realization that this house was always full of love, that _you_ were the one who brought the tension and the anger. You were the one who brought hate into this home. Yet, Derek has taken that hate from you, washed it out with the flood of come that filled your mouth and pooled in your stomach, fucked it out of you and knotted you down to keep it from ever returning.

The mood at breakfast is better than it’s ever been since you joined them here, and you know why. They can smell you and Derek all over one another. As if that weren’t enough, he presses a kiss to the crown of your head as he passes by you when you are seated at the table. All is not yet right, and you know you have sins to pay for, that you must yet earn forgiveness for your ingratitude, for your hostility to the people who saved your life. As you sit at the table, digging into eggs and bacon, you realize how you can begin your path to redemption. That night, when the moon is just teasing at the eastern horizon, you wordlessly grab Derek and head for Talia, who is standing on the front porch, looking eastwards. When she turns to face you, it is with burning red eyes, and, for perhaps the first time, you are happy to see them. You’ve given up your god, you’ve given up everything but your humanity itself. You roll up the sleeves of your shirt, and hold out your wrist to her, freely given.

It’s freely taken, as well.

**Author's Note:**

> As per usual, I beg for your reviews to feed my endless need for validation by peers. Tell me your honest thoughts, this is something entirely new for me to write.


End file.
